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Eight Steps for Boosting Associate and Lateral Retention

By Nancy Needle and Beth Marie Cuzzone
August 31, 2006

Attorney attrition is expensive. Replacing departing colleagues means not only recruiting and hiring strong candidates, but also investing in training for the new hires. Cost estimates for replacing an associate are typically between 100% and 200% of the associate's annual salary. The soft costs ' lost institutional knowledge and potential morale problems ' may be even greater. And attorneys who leave with bad feelings about the firm can spread their ill will in the local legal community, or try to lure others to follow. A mass exodus, of course, can cripple a firm.

These are not hypothetical problems. Attrition is a continuing concern for many firms. According to 'Keeping the Keepers: Strategies for Associate Retention in Times of Attrition' (the landmark study on attrition conducted by the NALP Foundation in 1998 and 2003), almost 1% of entry-level associates leave each month. This doesn't sound like a high turnover rate, but it means, for instance, that by early in the fourth year of employment, more than a third of all associates have departed. By the sixth year, more than half of associates have moved to in-house positions, joined other firms or left the practice of law altogether.

Attrition rates for lateral hires are just as high, and over certain time frames, even higher. Two-thirds of laterals move again within 6 years.

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